Man faces felony charges in ID theft case

CLIFTON PARK >> Twenty-year-old Saihing Chan incurred four felony charges Wednesday in Saratoga County for his alleged role in stealing identities from nearly 80 patrons who ate at a now-closed Glenmont restaurant.

At the time of his arrest, he was an inmate at Albany County Jail on an additional 19 identity theft-related felonies he is facing.

The Golden Town Buffet Hibachi & Sushi opened its doors in Glenmont in June 2013 and closed less than two months later, when the Secret Service executed a search warrant Aug. 5 after an investigation revealed credit cards were being duplicated from the eatery. The charges from Saratoga County stem from Chan using debit card numbers to make purchases in the area, police said.

When the operation unraveled, it revealed a hierarchy of crime that spanned several states and a slew of players, according to Bethelehem Police Detective Sgt. Adam Hornick, who worked for over seven months to locate and arrest Chan and the other individuals involved in the scheme.

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This is how the con worked: a customer would pay using a credit card and the restaurant worker would swipe it through a skimmer — a small, handheld device that copies the magnetic strip and stores its information. When the device is filled, it gets passed to another person who downloads its contents onto a computer and extracts the information needed to create a duplicate card using the stolen identity.

Then, the duplicate card is passed off again to a person who goes shopping with it and, typically, returns the items for cash refunds. That was Chan’s job.

“Chan was the primary user of these fraudulent cards,” a release from the Bethlehem Police Department states. “Chan was involved in using these cards at multiple locations for the purchase of merchandise, gift cards and expensive perfumes.”

The challenge in locating Chan, Hornick said, laid not only in the fact that he was constantly traveling between New York and Connecticut, but also because he wasn’t on the restaurant’s video surveillance footage.

The case is larger than one Glenmont buffet and even the Capital Region. According to Hornick, restaurants operating similar schemes were busted in Rhode Island and Pennsylvania — all run by Chinese nationals.

In fact, Hornick said Chan was the sole American citizen. Three restaurant workers, whom police say were unconnected to the identity theft ring, were under active deportation orders when the search warrant was executed and have already been deported.

Three other men — Pheng Sathongoth, 52, of Manhattan; Bao Hua Liu, 51, of Manhattan; and Heng Li, 28, of Brooklyn — were arrested in connection to the scam in the eight months since the warrant was carried out.

At the time of his arrest, Li worked at the restaurant and skimmed credit cards. He was arrested during the search and had a skimmer with 39 credit cards that were never used. He is currently serving 2-1/3 to seven years in state prison. After he serves his time, he will be deported.

Sathongoth was apprehended while he was gambling at Foxwoods Casino in Connecticut. Hornick said he was a shopper and driver for the operation, among other things. He is currently facing 2-1/3 to seven years in state prison and is scheduled to be sentenced April 28. He will also be deported after he carries out his prison sentence.

Li primarily drove Chan from store to store to shop, Hornick said. His case is still pending.

There were 40 credit cards that were stolen and used, and when Li was arrested, he had a skimmer with 39 credit cards on it, which were never used.